NormandyBee™

The Review.

The easiest way to transform into EuroBee™ is to latch on like a blood sucking parasite to a group who are already coordinating things and just throw money at them. Make it rain! Wait, are we talking about a strip club or GORUCK? Either way, you spend lots of money on it and are left with not much but mixed emotions, maybe a twinge of shame and regret when it’s all said and done.

I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. Moreso than Laos (my roots!) and I don’t know if that makes me a bad Laotion or not but well, that’s life. So GORUCK has a Normandy HCL (Heavy-Challenge-Light) and I was like “hey I’m not attached #faby #foreverAloneBeeYang #byfa #BeeYangForeverAlone #fatAssBeeYang #beeYangFatAsian” so I book my trip and try to convince everyone I know to show up. Literally all you needed to do is pay for a flight there and I will cover the rest but nobody believes me so I plan to fly solo. Bastards.

But wait, Jason G. answers the call! Actually, his friends bailed on his HCL in Missouri or somewhere so he has not much else to do but go to France. When I say that about the call, I hear a horn from The Lord of the Rings and it’s fucking dramatic as shit and he only answers because people are busy/being-bitches and can’t show up to Europe to get their asses kicked by some Green Berets because really, you can take a tour for way cheaper (physically and emotionally) but if you put in work, you get to see things like Pointe Du Hoc from the bottom! AHHH!!!

Not weird at all.

So a room and our ride is secured with Stacy and we are settled in. I bought the ATT Passport thing which is cool but it had limited data (120mb) and you make it work. I used just over 100mb but if you won’t have WiFi wherever you are staying then you might want to spring for the next level up. I fly into CDG and hope for the best and this place is cool because you have free WiFi and you’re in mother f ing FRANCE. I link up with the rest of the team here we are in the Avis parking lot and roll out to Bayeux.

We arrive after what seems like 5 tolls and life gets real…there’s no WiFi here 🙁 We are in our team house and decide to go into town because we’ve nothing else to do and end up at a pizza parlor because, check it out, they have free WiFi! We eat and drink our ass off. This is crucial for anyone coming out here.

However, you make it work by going to restaurants that have free WiFi aka the pizza place in downtown which has the best (and only!) curry pizza I’ve ever had. This is where we spend a lot of our time because 1) it has free WiFi (weefee) and 2) it’s pretty good. We aren’t sure if 2 is related to 1 but we enjoy it enough to show up repeatedly.

<all the other HCL stuff>

I’m thinking about during the Challenge is “man, I could really go for a curry pizza right about now!” So we did. After HCL on Saturday afternoon half of the team showers in the one bath we have and then we link up at the pizza place. Then we Eat. If you’ve ever done a long endurance event then you know what I’m talking about. It starts out with “I’ll just have one pizza” but you know, and everyone else knows you are just lying to yourself. Already I know I’m going to have two pizzas but due to table space I just order one. Midway through curry pizza one I order another dish. Then a third. Some of the ladies with us have ordered two plates but seem to be fading. LOL please let me “help” you with that.

Have you seen Rush Hour 2 where Chris Tucker is ordering all the masseuses when Jackie Chan chooses just the one? That was everyone looking at the menu post-HCL. “I don’t know what that is but I’ll take two of them!” and so on. I have not had such a ravenous appetite since…hell I don’t know. All I do know is that I ate everything in sight and could have kept eating more. 45€ in pizza/other food later, I was done. Not because I was full but because I didn’t want to spend any more money. I ate all the things and wanted more. I guess HCL is a big deal.

I waddle back to the car and people are laughing but fuck ’em they didn’t do HCL in some sweet, sweet ranger panties they don’t know what it’s like to be dumb (OK maybe they do since they did HCL). We return to the house and sleep for a bit, then go to the cadre team house for some post-event beers. We show up about an hour late and everyone is kind of having a good time but lots of people look beat, whether from the HCL, H, C or L. Then we sit around and out-drink everyone until it’s time to go home at 01:30.

…then wake up in the morning with the idea to grill that night and go to Juno Beach (Canada’s objective on D-Day) for lunch. We hop into the car and go shopping because EuroGrocery stores like to close at noon on Sunday for some reason. Or the one grocery store we went to did so I’ll just assume they all are like that.

We drop the supplies off at home and head to Juno Beach. Well, the town nearby anyway for a quick lunch. “Quick lunch” ends up taking 3 damned hours because uh…that’s what they do. I had curry mussels and I wouldn’t finish them all because honestly, it was too much work to eat that many. LazyBee best Bee. We hit up the beach next and take lots of pictures and Jason points out that we likely will never look at these pics again and damn is he depressing to talk to so I don’t really take too many more pics because he is right.

resistance

French Resistance monument at Juno Beach

With that done, we head back to the house and France has these amazing rolling hills and great temps so if you’re in the backseat and you’re tired from a GORUCK HCL, it’s the perfect place to take a short nap while the best drivers ever give us a ride back home. Some people try to nap and some start cleaning their gear/the house. That’s probably the least enjoyable part of these events – the cleanup.

After cleanup, we start grilling and by grilling I mean drinking beers while James grills. Aaron and Jason come by and they start drinking and then get on talking about rappelling down Pointe Du Hoc. So that’s one difference between SOF dudes and me. They sit around and talk about doing cool shit like rappelling down POINTE DU HOC and me and my friends are all “hey want to go get some dinner?”

Cadre Aaron preppin’ for Pointe du Hoc

Prepping for the climb here at the house.

So they get all prepped up and I’m over here drinking all the beers with Jason and we decide to put on our French shirts. These shirts are dumb but hell, hilarious to wear. We load up the cars and then ride over to Pointe Du Hoc. We bring way too many beers and it’s kind of fun to watch people start rappelling but once they’ve over the edge there’s not much to do out there but freeze your ass off and drink beer.

Rappelling down Pointe Du Hoc.

That’s it for Normandy. We wake up the next day and head out. I’m ready to go home.